Government reprimand of chick-fil-a does nothing to promote equality for gays

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Ahhh! The Chick-fil-A debacle seems to be over. Now we can look back and perform a proper post-mortem of how and why both sides behaved the way they did, and whether those reactions were helpful, harmful, or mattered at all in the end.

Just in case you missed the whole thing, here’s the backstory. Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A, a fast food joint with pickles as the secret chicken-flavor enhancing ingredient, decided to publicly weigh in on his company’s stance when it comes to the sanctity of marriage on the Ken Coleman radio show.

“As it relates to society in general, I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’” Cathy said. “I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is all about.”

Even though Cathy’s comments are reprehensible and his blatant bigotry is eye-opening (but expected from the Christian Right), he had every right to say these things.

He also has every right to pursue the growth of his company in any market where he sees money-making potential, including the cities that told him he wouldn’t be allowed to open stores in.

When mayors of prominent cities such as Thomas Menino in Boston and Rahm Emanuel in Chicago decide to flex their political muscle and disenfranchise or threaten the well-being of a bigot like Cathy, they do a disservice to their office and their constituents.

They also undermine the bigger issue. In proclaiming their intentions of keeping Chik-fil-A out of their cities, they move the goalposts of the argument to one of free speech and out of the realm of second-classing our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered community.

Citizens should be able to affect the change they believe. These choices should not be the exclusive provenance of overzealous mouth-breathing politicians, who pander to the base human emotions that we respond with when confronted by the smug level of self-righteous hate that Cathy exudes.

The proper response should have been one of educating the populace about Chick-fil-A’s corporate donations, and using this information to help shape a proper boycott.

According to Equality Matters, a fact-checking organization that supports LGBT initiatives, Chick-fil-A donated $2 million to various anti-gay organizations in 2010 alone. Some of these recipients of corporate hate-money believe in “curing” homosexuality, promote the definition of marriage as between a man and woman, and condemn homosexual sex as somehow being impure and/or sinful.

In the case of The Family Research Council (FRC), Equality Matters points out Chick-fil-A’s donation of $1000. The FRC advocated against the congressional condemnation of the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill. While this is a small pittance in the grand scheme of hate-money Chik-fil-A has thrown around, it speaks volumes about where a consumer’s money eventually gets filtered to.

This is where a boycott campaign could have a bigger effect. If more people were aware of Chik-fil-A’s true stance and the byproduct of their corporate donations from corporate profits, they may be inclined to forego buying a mediocre piece of fried chicken on a buttered bun with pickles.

Instead of this productive and positive response, we devolved into a free speech argument when the governments of Chicago and Boston tried to unconstitutionally intervene by declaring their cities as Chick-fil-A-free zones.

The result was a maddening display of willful ignorance and organized hate. On the pro-Chick-fil-A side we got a fun family-friendly day of supporting Chick-fil-A by buying their plumped up chicken sandwiches in support of free speech. Their free speech meant “fuck the gays,” and not in the fun way.

It’s as if both sides devolved into a pile of self-flagellating stupid. No salient points were made, and we are back where we started. The bottom line is that we, as informed consumers, have the ability to affect the change our society needs. The anti-homosexual bigots are in their pathetic death throes, and the more enlightened of us can both drag and guide them kicking and screaming into the future.

5 Comments

Barack Obama 2004: “marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”

Mr. McMahon: Assuming your were of voting age in 2008, did you vote for that “bigot” (your words), Obama? Obama didn’t change his public view on this issue until May of this year when it appears he decided that it was politically astute to do so.

For thousands of years across the globe, “marriage” meant one thing: the union of a man and a woman. Now a minority of activists wish to change the definition of marriage and those who don’t want to go along with the program are “haters” and “bigots.” That would include most of liberal California because in 2008 voters decided against amending the constitution to allow gay marriage.

Are you in favor, Mr. McMahon, of allowing brothers and sisters to marry? Three, four, twelve people to “marry.” If not, you’re a bigot and a hater, just like Dan Cathy.

I visited Chik-fil-A for the first time recently to show my support for the company because of it being maligned by the Left, though as a libertarian I believe that anyone can “marry” whomever one wishes.

I could not agree more with the author. In particular, the point that not only did the grandstanding politicians do a considerable harm to the urgent purpose of debunking Cathy’s hateful cause cèlébre, but by doing so accelerated the devolving of political discourse in general. Sadly, this inevitably multipllies to a point whereby the crazy voices rise in a voluminous crescendo in which the only thing anyone can hear is seemingly everyone calling everyone else a lying, evil mother fucker, and presto changeo, we have Yahoo message boards to the 10th power. I would suggest that this has been an overiding characteristic of political discourse in the United States for some time.

Wouldn’t it? I’ve always found it weird how polygamy, group marriages, and other forms of marriage are never discussed when the LBGT community is brought up. The LBGT suffer from several disadvantages, including stricter immigration rules and less favorable tax benefits. However they at least aren’t subject to federal or state raids.

Polygamists on the other hand continue to remain targets by the FBI, state law enforcement agencies, and other federal agencies. Same-sex marriage/unions are recognized in some jurisdictions of the USA, but polygamists receive recognition nowhere. In the 19th century the hatred for polygamists was strong enough that the federal military, and state militias, were used to attack polygamist Mormons several times. Under the threat of the bayonet the Mormon church was forced to change its view on marriage. Despite this though you never hear a word of sympathy for polygamists.

Ultimately, is it not their right to decide what they do in bed? Is this not a principle of the LBGT movement? Why not have a LGBTP (Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Trans-Polygamist) movement instead?